Don't take this one as news (or even rumor) at this point, but rather as something that's popped up in the CrackBerry forums that makes for an interesting discussion for a Tuesday morning. CrackBerry member PensHockeyposted the image above last night that was emailed to him from a friend - along with a subject title of Tropic (and no body text) in the email....

After doing some quick research (could be wrong), it appears that internally (to RIM) that the "9990" model number does actually exist but doesn't seem to point to a new device - rather it is classified as Storm 2 hardware. The 9990's 5.7 OS could be/should be experimental/newer firmware for the Storm 2 (which for a long time now has been referred to as the 9550), though at this time the 5.7 version number displayed is definitely new/unheard of by most, so we're not fully sure what the scoop is here. It seems unlikely that 5.7 software would ever be "released" anytime soon (5.0 is the next rollout and we've heard that 5.2 is the next iteration to becoming). We don't **think** the image is a photoshop at least, but who knows, stranger things have happened. It really wouldn't be that hard to do up a wallpaper like this and take a photo. While version 5.7 software seems crazy, the fact images like this are not meant to be seen by the public (assuming it's a legit image of course) doesn't mean RIM could do some funky labeling on some internal test builds. Or, this could easily be BS. As said above, it's not news or rumor, but an interesting photo that showed up in the forums that we decided to post to the blogs to make for some discussion and there is some evidence that the 9990 is a model for the Storm 2.

So what's this mean right now? Not much. The next-generation Storm is still a few months away from being released, and in the meantime a lot of work is being done on the firmware and things like device model numbers can change (but I wouldn't start calling the 9550 the 9990 just yet!). When I posted the video of the Storm 9550 in action the other week, which displayed an OS that was still in early stages, it was made clear to me that the final OS should be running smooth and offer up some enhancements not yet reflected in the firmware I was running (it seems there could be a bit more to the new touchscreen technology than initially meets the eye). I still owe y'all a follow-up Q&A post which is coming, but have been holding off on posting that for a bit (variety of reasons). Stay tuned. Have fun in the comments. Who calls photoshop? Who argues it's legit?

Hey everyone,
I have done this too. Make photoshopped images, open them up on my storm and take pictures of them. This is clerely that. The work is great but when you look at the phone itself it looks EXACTLY like the storm 1 and not 2...

I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss it. I read online that the 9990 with OS 5.7 is capable of generating 1.21 gigawatts of power. You would NEVER have to recharge. RIM is obviously way ahead of the game.

How hard would it be to "photoshop" 4.7.0.151 (which IS out from Iusacell in Mexico for the Storm 9530) to 5.7.0.151? I don't have my 151 running Storm handy, do the other numbers line up with what 4.7.0.151 says???

The rest of the numbers don't match up but changing different numbers here and there wouldn't exactly be difficult. Some of the numbers don't follow a logical pattern and look like they were just moved up to the next number for the sake of looking more "advanced". It also looks like the screen edge and bezel of the 9530. Compared it to mine. Completely fake. Still getting the Storm 2, though.

That "Micro Edition Media Version" line is definitely not right. There would be a space in there. Whoever did this wanted it to seem more advanced so they changed it to 2.1, but ended up with not enough space to fit it. Also, ... its just way too coincidental ... 4.7.0.151 ... 5.7.0.151. C'mon. And the platform version is the same as a 9500 runing 5.0.0.140? No way. I call BRAVO SIERRA!!

I think that it's intriguing really, i mean we do have a name of a tropic rolling around right? who knows maybe this is the Storm 3. RIM can't just be working on the Storm 2 they have a be many steps ahead of that and let the process trickle down. When it gets close to release then we hear about it so maybe........just maybe this is a new OS or a new Storm that will be in the works later on....i just hope i win one when Crackberry throws a contest! <<<------ Kevin please not this! ;-D

If you remember the previous vids of the storm 2 you will realize that the phone in this pic has that same click touch screen like the storm 9530, same gap, same silver border, and if you look really close you can kinda see a scratch on the left of the casing. I would at least think if the damn storm 2 is still in the works they would take better care of it than that, sheesh!!! But what ever,Epic PHOTOSHOP phail < (all fillipino like, lol)

I'm personly going with potentialy real, there is know we could know everything the BB is trying out, this could very well be a Alpha for a phone we will be seeing a few years down the road, these things take more then a year to engineer, build, program and so on. But, Eh, who knows, the posibility also exists that becouse of this image, if it was real BB COULD (though I wouldn't be supprised if they didn't bother also) change the Model / OS numbers if they wanted to. So I guess it's possibile we could never know.

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